The Blindboy Podcast - I'll Give You Barcelona

Episode Date: December 13, 2023

I discuss themes of masculinity within the myth of Cú Chulainn, and I read my short story "I'll give you Barcelona" Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sleep with the bleeding priest, you sheepish ephes. Welcome to the Blind Buy Podcast. It's a sweaty December. It's 11 degrees outside. It wasn't last week it was fucking freezing. It was minus four last week. And if you remember some podcasts from last year, I had some precarious situations with ice.

There's this new type of ice happening in Ireland. It's global warming ice. There's this new type of ice happening in Ireland. It's global warming ice. The footpaths and the roads freeze during the night time and then at about 12 o'clock in the day they thaw. They briefly thaw and then they freeze again so the ice becomes exceptionally slick and twice last year I had situations where the only way I could leave my house was by crawling along on my belly. I had to crawl along my driveway on my belly and I had to start wearing big giant socks on the outsides of my shoes which made me look like Sonic the Hedgehog. So this year I've purchased like a pair of snow tires for my feet. I got them online. They're like these metal, they're like metal socks that I put over my shoes and I'm impervious to

ice. I can walk on the slickest of ice. I can dance on ice and these metal shoe socks mean I won't slip. Even last week I was cycling in the ice which I shouldn't have done to be honest but I did it and as I was cycling in the ice my wheel went from underneath me and then I put my feet down and my metal ice socks protected me actually if you want to get a good a good gift especially for an elderly person in your life. Because like when I fall over in the ice, I fall over, but I'm not old enough yet to have a fall. Like falling over, falling over is when you injure yourself, it's not pleasant, I don't want to fall over. But then you reach a certain age and you don't fall over, you have a fall.

but then you reach a certain age and you don't fall over you have a fall so if you know anyone in your life who may be at risk of having a fall in the ice get them these fucking ice grips that you put over your shoes now this isn't sponsored or anything

there's loads of them you just get them online but that's a great practical gift for anyone who might have a fall in the ice actually it could be quite an insulting gift don't like get these But that's a great practical gift for anyone who might have a fall in the ice. Actually, it could be quite an insulting gift. Don't, like, get these for someone you know who's over the age of fucking 65 and say, I got you these ice socks in case you have a fall. Thank you, everybody, for the wonderful feedback for last week's podcast

where I had a chat with the magnificent Johnny Marr. I was fucked from COVID last week. I'm better now. I didn't get that bad a dose. I just happened to be at the peak of it when I was recording last week's podcast so I was quite fatigued but I'm fine now. But speaking of musical legends we also lost the magnificent Shane McGowan. Shane McGowan died and we're all heartbroken in Ireland because we're after losing fucking Shane McGowan and Sinead O'Connor in such

a short period of time. Two icons, two legends who represented a specific type of Irishness. What I adored about Shane McGowan's writing was how he would imbue the work with references to literature or Irish mythology but he'd do it in a way that wasn't, it wasn't pretentious, he wasn't doing it for the sake of it. You could tell that he

genuinely adored and was passionate about literature, mythology, knowledge. And he'd be very playful with these things and he'd democratise these ideas. Through pop music and through punk music. The thing is with art, any type of art. And the difference I see, the difference between art and craft as I see it. Craft, craft is like just the fruiting body. Craft is a flower. The bit that pokes up above the soil.

It's beautiful. We can admire it. It's there in front of us. You can pick it up and hold it in your hand and say look at this beautiful flower. That's craft. But art is not only the fruiting body the flower that pokes up above the soil

the bit that we can see and enjoy art is the roots the unseen network of fibres that splay out for fucking metres underneath the soil that we don't see and those fibres interact with the fibers of

other pieces of art intertextually. The root network of a piece of art, it's not made up of fibers of roots, it's fibers of ideas, it's other people's art, it's what other pieces of art from the past are being referenced here. How does that piece of work nourish this piece of work, like it's fertilizer? How does that nourishment contribute to meaning? And when you're appreciating art, you don't have to look at what's underneath the soil. You don't have to look at those roots and how those roots connect to the roots of other pieces of art. You don't have to if you don't want to. You can just enjoy the fruitingiting body the flower that pokes up above the earth you can admire its colour

you can smell its lovely smell you can admire the craft that pokes up the aesthetics of it but the smell of that flower and the colours of its petals and the vibrancy of its leaves it's fucking fed it's fed by the root structure underneath the soil

that you don't see and when you pluck it it's beautiful for a little bit but then it dies then it's fed by the root structure underneath the soil that you don't see and when you pluck it it's beautiful for a little bit but then it dies and it's just craft and Shane McGowan really understood this with his art one of my favorite songs from Shane McGowan from his band the pogs would be a song called the sick bed of cuckoo Colin when you hear the song the sick bed of cuckoo Colin it sounds like a fucking drinking song. It is a drinking

song. It's a party song. When that comes on in the pub you want to order another pint. It is pure and utter fun. It makes you want to dance. It makes you want to shout. It makes you want to have crack. There's a glass of punch below your feet and an angel at your head.

There's devils on each side of you with bottles in their hands. You need one more drop of poison and you'll dream of foreign lands. When you pissed yourself in Frankfurt and got sift down in Cologne. And you heard the rattling death trains as you laid there all alone. Frank Ryan bought you whiskey in a brothel in Madrid and you decked some fucking black shirt who was cursing all the yids. At the sickbed of Cú Chulainn, we'll kneel and say a prayer, but the ghosts are rattling at the door and the devil's in the chair.

And in the Euston Tavern, you screamed it was your shout, but they wouldn't give you service, so you kicked the windows out. They took you out into the street, kicked you in the brains, so you walked back in through a bolted door and did it all again. At the sick bed of Cú Chulainn we'll kneel and say a prayer. And when you hear that song, it's so fast, it's done in an Irish trad reel. And it's a song about drinking, it's a song about going on a fucking mad one all around the world drinking drinking drinking boxing fascists into the face getting kicked out of pubs going back in and you keep at it and you keep at

it and on a surface level the flower the fruiting body of that art that pokes above the ground on a surface level you can enjoy that flower and smell smell its lovely smell and admire its petals and you can enjoy it simply as just a fucking a fun drinking song let's have another pint and go mad you can do that if you like and you can leave it at that if you like you can enjoy the craft of that but then if you want to dig deeper and get your hands into the sods of the art and look at the roots of the song and what other pieces of art it references and the intertextuality you look for your little clues such as the name of the song the sick bed of Cú Chulainn and now you're looking at Irish mythology now you're looking at oral mythology that's thousands of years old and you're asking who was Cú Chulainn and what happened on the sickbed of Cú Chulainn. And Cú Chulainn was

a heroic figure in Irish mythology. He was a warrior, but he was more than a warrior. He was a warrior that was so much of a warrior that when you read Irish mythology and how he's described, he's described through complete hyperbole, complete exaggeration. Cú Chulainn is described with lies, exaggerated lies that are so extreme you can't visualize him. And Cú Chulainn died in battle. Cú Chulainn didn't have a sickbed, he died in battle. But again within this theme of hyperbole exaggerated lies that are so extreme Cú Chulainn didn't die a normal death he was on the battlefield and was wounded to the point that he was ready to lie down but Cú Chulainn wouldn't let himself lie down instead he found an ancient standing stone and you can see this exact standing stone it's called Clough farmore it's up in dundalk

it's a two thousand year old stone that pokes up out of the ground about 20 feet high i think it has ancient inscriptions on it and archaeologists have found like spears and swords and shit around the area so it appears to be a stone in an ancient battlefield and the myth of Cú Chulainn is that when he was dying in battle rather than lay down he tied himself to this stone and faced his enemies and as his enemies came towards him as he was dying he kept fighting him off with his sword and they couldn't beat him even though he was dying he kept fighting and fighting and only finally died when a raven the goddess marigan landed on his shoulder so there you have an oral myth the story of cook cullen's death could be thousands of years old would have been written down in the 500s 500 ad by monks and you have Shane McGowan's work referencing this

these are the roots to this flower that we listen to in the pub and what it's about really is the terror, the battle of alcoholism the battle of drink the sickbed of Cú Chulainn in the Pogues song is a hangover

at the sickbed of Cú Chulainn we'll kneel and say a prayer getting sick into the jacks is a hangover. At the sickbed of Cú Chulainn we'll kneel and say a prayer. Getting sick into the jacks. And what Shane McGowan is doing there is he's using the ancient Irish mythology, this vision, this image of the hero Cú Chulainn, this icon of Irish masculinity, this icon who was addicted to battle effectively. Whose body would morph in a frenzy. Whenever he entered battle. Fighting off his enemies. And Shane McGowan is contrasting that with.

With alcohol. Contrasting it with. The joy and fun. Of getting absolutely fucking mouldy. And going mad. And knowing that it's killing you. Knowing that it's wounding you. And instead of lying down and giving up.

With your wounds open. From the drink. And puking into the ball. Puking up blood. Doing horrendous painful damage to yourself. You still tie yourself to the stone. And you do it again tomorrow night. And that's what I love about Shane McGowan tomorrow night and that's what I love about

Shane McGowan's work that's what I love about the pogs about that song the sick bed of Cú Chulainn and if you're thinking ah blind boy you're digging too deep I'm not I'm digging deep because I'm a botanist I grow flowers I'm interested in the roots I need to know what fertilizer Shane McGowan is using to grow such beautiful flowers but what makes the art so good is you don't have to do that if you don't want to you can just admire the flower bask in the aesthetics of the fruiting body

but the reason the flower is so beautiful the reason Shane McGowan is a legend the reason that his work is great art is because that root network is there and because that fertiliser is there you don't have to see it you don't have to feel it but the nourishment is there

and you appreciate it through the fruiting body contrast that with just any old drinking song there's thousands go over to Boston go into some Irish pub find some band who are trying to sound like

the Pogues and are just writing songs about drinking whiskey and drinking Guinness and it sounds the same and it has a similar energy and what you have there is, it's a bouquet of flowers, it's a flower that's been taken out of the soil or it's a plastic flower, it's the floating body disconnected from the roots and the nourishment. And you don't have to be an artist to tell. You just know. The glow isn't there. And that for me is the difference between what we'd consider art and skilled craft. Something artisanal. And I'm not placing one above the other. I'm just saying with art there's way more digging to be done. With art there's a lot more ideas to dig through, if that's what turns you on, if that's what you're curious about.

And a song that explores this exact theme that I'm speaking about is a song called In Bloom by Nirvana. Because again, Kurt Cobain, Nirvana is art, it's real art. You can go into Kurt Cobain's lyrics, you can go into the music and you'll find intertextuality there. There's real strong root structure to Nirvana's music and it's connected with other pieces of art and it's very well nourished with ideas and curiosity and respect and love for other art and art that has gone before. And then the fruiting body of that, the flower, is incredibly beautiful. It has an otherworldly glow and that's why we're still talking about Nirvana. Listen to Nirvana's song Scentless Apprentice. Wonderful fucking song. Absolute banger. Listen to it like that by itself if you like or also read

the book Parfume by Patrick Suskind which inspired the lyrics. Now you're going through the root structure and you come away with a deeper understanding of the fruiting body. But Nirvana's song In Bloom it's Kurt Cobain kind of singing about they got all these new fans as Nirvana got bigger they got all these new fans

who didn't really care about the art of what Nirvana were doing and the chorus of In Bloom is he's the one who likes all our pretty songs and he likes to sing along about the art of what Nirvana were doing. And the chorus of In Bloom is, he's the one who likes all our pretty songs, and he likes to sing along, and he likes to shoot his gun, but he don't know what it means.

And I think what Kurt Cobain was talking about there is, their actual shows were getting ruined. I think what was happening is that, because Nirvana's music was so loud and heavy and aggressive, these arsehole fans were showing up, who were wrecking the buzz for everybody. Because in the inside of Nirvana's album, there's a quote that Kurt Cobain wrote that said, If you're a sexist, racist, homophobe or basically an arsehole,

don't buy this CD. I don't care if you like me, I hate you. So he wouldn't have written that if it wasn't becoming a problem. So Kurt Cobain is saying, don't come to this garden and pick these flowers and just admire them as pretty little flowers that you can smell and enjoy. They belong in the

ground connected to the roots where they're nourished by ideas and intertextuality with other work. This is art it's not craft. If you want to go and hear some band just be loud and scream, then go to their gig. But you're not here, please, because we're trying to do something different. Please respect this because you're being sexist, racist and homophobic to all

the fans at our gigs. And I don't know, is that the reason they call the song In Bloom or why throughout the lyrics you have themes of nature and fruit but it's a song about exactly what I'm speaking about and it ties in nicely with the metaphor of understanding art as a flower that's grown from the ground but for this week's podcast I want to I want to read you a short story from my new book Topografia Hiber. The story's called I'll Give You Barcelona. And with this story, I was curious about masculinity. I was curious about how masculinity as a social construct is often defined by rage and anger. And when I say curious there, I never say this story is about masculinity. I tend not to create anything with a definite purpose. What I prefer is to create something with a curiosity around certain

themes so that when I'm actually writing I'm being playful and I'm finding out as I go along. But one of the reasons I want to read this story to you this week it's because I was thinking about Shane McGowan. It's because of Shane McGowan's death and thinking about the sick bed of Cú Chulainn that song. Because the myth of Cú Chulainn is something I was researching and being curious about when I was writing this story. In particular Cú Chulainn as an icon of Irish masculinity. The myth of Cú Chulainn comes from the Ulster Cycle of Irish mythology. Could be a couple of thousand years old, like I said. Was written down by monks from the 500s onwards. But then the other thing with Irish mythology, in particular heroic Irish mythology, so I

mean Cú Chulainn or the Fenian cycle of Irish mythology with Fionn MacCool. This Irish mythology was kind of re-translated and re-written in the late 1800s by Irish revolutionaries deliberately to instill a sense of violent masculinity

in Irish men. Ireland was trying to break free of the colonial shackles of Britain and 800 years of colonisation. And in the late 1800s, with the Gaelic League, certain figures brought back these stories of Cú Chulainn as this relentless warrior, this warrior who never gives up, this warrior who will die on the battlefield and continue fighting, to instil a sense of violent masculinity in young Irish men so that they would go on and become Athenian,

so that they'd join the Irish Republican Brotherhood or later the Irish Republican Army to fight British soldiers, even though they would most likely die. A direct example of that for me is one of the families that were involved in translating Irish mythology in the late 1800s were the O'Rahilly family, of which Mán Cháin Magan, who I've had as a guest on this podcast a number of times, of which Mancón Magan, who I've had as a guest on this podcast a number of times, he's a descendant of the O'Reilly's. But the O'Reilly family were very much involved in the ideological side of Irish freedom. And Michael O'Reilly, also known as The O'Reilly,

he was in the 1916 Rising, and he literally led a rugby charge against British machine guns and died like a suicide mission. His body was torn to bits while he ran towards firing British machine guns. He died on the battlefield, effectively tied to a stone like Cú Chulainn, facing the bullets as they ripped him apart. He became the 19th century living ideal of the icon of Irish masculinity as interpreted from the myths of Cú Chulainn. So I'll go through Cú Chulainn's life story

first for those who might not be aware. Cú Chulainn wasn't real by the way, he's a mythological hero. He's the central figure of an Irish epic myth called the Tyne which is like our equivalent of the Iliad or the Odyssey. He was a relentless warrior. Such a ferocious warrior that he was described in the oral tradition using exaggeration in a way that you couldn't possibly even imagine what he looked like and that's what I love about the Irish oral storytelling tradition.

Our use of hyperbole. Like I said, hyperbole is extreme exaggeration. Almost lying when you're having fun. But Cú Chulainn, he had a divine birth. A bit like Christ. His da was a god. And his mother couldn't really explain how she got pregnant a bit like Mary but she got pregnant and a god told her that's my son inside and you so she gave birth to a young

fella called Satanta now as a child young Satanta he used to get into fights with other lads as was normal at the time in an ancient Irish warrior culture. He used to get into fights with other boys. But the difference was with Satanta. He had this supernatural ability called Reastrad. Or the warp spasm. When young Satanta would get angry and furious. His entire body would change. He would warp into.

Not quite a monster but the physical embodiment of anger. Something indescribable, physically indescribable and when he entered a warp spasm he would kill everything in sight. He was unbeatable. One day young Satanta went to visit a blacksmith by the name of Cullen and Cullen had this ferocious dog, this hound that was guarding his house and when Satanta went up to Cullen's house the dog went mad and attacked Satanta. Now this dog was ferocious, it was an Irish wolfhound, no one was beating this dog but young Satanta he had a Harley and a slitter. A slitter is the ball in the Irish game of harling. So young Satanta, he hit this slitter, this ball,

towards the dog and it went right down the dog's throat and choked him to death. And then Colin comes out, the blacksmith, and says says what the fuck you after doing Satanta you're after killing my dog you prick the fuck you have to doing that for and then young Satanta says I'm so sorry the dog attacked me and then Colin goes I don't give a fuck now I don't have a guard dog what if people come to try and rob me what if they try and I'm a blacksmith people could rob my my iron my weapons who Who's gonna guard me? And then Satanta says, I'll be your guard dog. I'm gonna be your

guard dog. I killed that dog so now I'm gonna guard that forge. So Cullen says, okay, grand you're gonna be my guard dog now. And then the druid Cathbad came along and said well we should change his name

he's not Satanta anymore now he's Cú Chulainn and Cú Chulainn means the hound of Cúilainn the dog of Cúilainn so as Cú Chulainn I'm leaving a lot of shit out now because this is

this is an epic fucking story it's massive so I'm leaving a lot of shit out but as Cú Chulainn now gets older he becomes the fucking ferocious warrior unbeatable and the reason he's unbeatable is because he can enter warp spasm

Cú Chulainn can become so angry so consumed with rage that his entire body changes and he becomes pure vitriol like Ulster is invaded at one point and the men of Ulster are put under a curse whereby they get labour pains the men of Ulster all get the pains of labour

and they can't enter battle and Cú Chulainn himself defends Ulster single-handedly against waves of armies because he enters warp spasm and just can't be beaten and how warp spasm is described in Irish mythology the translations of it,

and this is what I adore, this is the hyperbole you find in foundational Irish literature. Exaggerations that are so surreal you can't possibly envision what it looks like. The first warp spasm seized Cú Chulainn and made him into a monstrous thing, hideous and shapeless, unheard of. His shanks and his joints, every knuckle and angle and organ from head to foot, shook like a tree in the

flood or reed in the stream. His body made a furious twist inside his skin so that his feet and shins and knees switched to the rear and his heels and calves switched to the front. On his head the temple sinews stretched to the nape of his neck, each mighty immense measureless knob as big as the head of a month old child. His face became a red ball. He sucked one eye so deep into his head that a wild crane couldn't pull it out of the depths of his skull. His mouth distorted, couldn't pull it out of the depths of his skull. His mouth distorted. His cheek peeled back from his jaws until his gullet appeared.

His lungs and liver flapped in his mouth and throat. Malignant mists and sparts of fire flickered red in the vaporous clouds that rose boiling above his head. So fierce was his fury. So that's the description there of Cú Chulainn's warp spasm. This strange monster that he would turn into when he got so angry. And that's Thomas Kintyla's translation from the 1920s. But you're talking about descriptions and imagery there that's thousands

of years old. But something that gets left out a bit of Cú Chulainn's rage and anger. Like I said, Cú Chulainn's rage and anger. Like I said Cú Chulainn was used as this icon of Irish masculinity. Allow rage to consume you in battle so that you're fearless and you die for your country. That's how Cú Chulainn was interpreted in the 1800s to inspire Irish men. Just fucking die. Fight and die. But what gets left out. Is the cost of that rage. The reason I'm. Fascinated by Cooke Cullen's warp spasms. Is for me.

It's a description of anger. An anger so. Blinding. That it takes away all rationality. If a person insults you or if your self-esteem is hurt in any way and you feel rage, your face feels red, you grit your teeth, you clench your fists. What you're dealing with there is fight or flight. An incredibly extreme emotional response to a threat. Now if you're in battle, if you're literally being attacked and you have to fight for your life,

then that emotional response might be useful for you in the moment. But humans are imperfect and we experience rage. I've experienced rage many times and it's never been because I was on the battlefield and rage and toxic anger are not useful if your feelings are hurt or if someone slights you in some way or if your sense of identity is threatened. Rage and toxic anger are no good to you. Rage and toxic anger will have you saying something hurtful to a person that you love. Men kill women because of rage and toxic anger. Men have a couple of pints and have an argument after a pub and hit a person because of rage and toxic anger and kill them with one punch and ruin two lives.

Rage and toxic anger are very rarely useful yet we often define masculinity by this rage and toxic anger. We position it as something to be excused and accepted rather than examined or something for us to accept responsibility for or take ownership of. I strive for kind of self-compassion and self-love so that I can achieve emotional regulation and calmness so that I can examine my anger critically like an adult so that it doesn't become a rage that drives my behaviour in an unhelpful and irrational direction. And crucial to that process is I have to deconstruct the narrative

that society has told me that boys will be boys. That violent anger is an appropriate way for a male to respond because that's just how men are. We've got so much testosterone. We're just, you know, that's how we're supposed supposed to be you're being a man if you get angry I reject that because I know that I can still acknowledge the feeling of anger and respond to it with compassion and be assertive rather than being rageful but in the original Irish mythology the bit that gets kind of left out is Cú Chulainn's rage and anger, his warp spasm causes him to kill his own son

by accident. When Cú Chulainn spent time in Scotland training to be a warrior he got a woman pregnant called Aoife and then he left and went back to Ireland before the child was born. His son's name was Conla and when Conla was eight years old he decides I'm gonna go to Ireland and trying to find my father Cú Chulainn, I'm gonna find my dad. So Conla arrives to Cú Chulainn's gaff but Cú Chulainn, like the dog that he had killed in his childhood. Coo Cullen just sees this eight-year-old as an intruder and he doesn't ask questions. He doesn't ask, who are you?

What's the crack? Why are you here? Coo Cullen gets the rage, gets the warp spasm, goes into a battle frenzy and is now fighting his eight-year-old son but he doesn't know it's his son. But his son is able to hold his own because he's Cú Chulainn's son he's able to fucking battle so Cú Chulainn now is fighting this child

going what the fuck is going on here why is an eight-year-old able to try and bait me but the rage and the toxic anger takes over and Cú Chulainn enters warp spasm and now murders the boy he beats him in battle and kills him and then afterwards learns that was your son he killed his own son and that's a very important part of the story of Cú Chulainn because what you have there those are the consequences of that rage in the original mythology you have an examination of the cost of rage and the cost of toxic anger. When you get that angry, you're a fucking idiot. You're an idiot. You're not calm.

You're not thinking about things critically. You punch first, you ask questions later. And now Coo Cullen's after killing his own little son. And in Coo Cullen's case, he becomes the dog. He becomes the Coo Cullen, the Hound of Cullin. You see, the dog is an animal. The dog is acting on instinct. It's a guard dog.

If a guard dog attacks, then we're not going to be too judgmental on a fucking animal. But a human being, a human being has the capacity to be calm and think critically. And Cú Chulainn didn't do that. He behaved like the dog and killed his own child. And that to me, that's the depth of Cú Chulainn's story in the original Irish mythology. That's the bit that lets, that's the bit that speaks about the human condition. You take that out and you've just got a mad cunt who gets angry and kills everyone and dies for his country. You get a type of nationalistic propaganda but you bring back in the sadness of he got so angry

he killed his own kid and now it doesn't matter how heroic he is in battle. It doesn't matter how much of a legend he is. It doesn't matter how hard he is. It doesn't matter what his reputation is. He's just martyred his little boy. But that telling of the story, that's not convenient when in the 1880s you're trying to raise a generation of Fenian warriors to go and fight the Brits. All you want to hear about there is the hero Cú Chulainn who didn't think about battle, who didn't think about battle who didn't think about fighting he just let his rage take over and die if he must on the battlefield and if you do die

you fucking die standing so before I read you this short story I'll give you Barcelona I'm going to have a little ocarina pause so that it's uninterrupted I'm in my office I don't have my ocarina what I do have is a book em I've is a book.

I've got a book that was actually given to me by Johnny Marr. And it's called On the Aesthetic Education of Man by Friedrich Schiller. I haven't had a chance to read it yet, but Johnny said it's fantastic. It's a book from the 18th century about the role of art in society. So I'm going to hit myself into the head with this. Okay, here is the me hitting myself into the head with the On the Aesthetic Education of Man by Friedrich Schiller pause. There's a nice snap to that. Not very pleasant.

On April 3rd. You must be very careful, Margaret. Not very pleasant. I believe the girl is to be the mother. Mother of what? Is the most terrifying. Six, six, six. It's the mark of the devil. Hey! Movie of the year. It's not real. It's not real. What's not real? Who said that? The First Omen. Only in theaters April 5th.

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just some gigs 2024 January 22nd and 23rd I'm in Vicar Street Dublin come along to those gigs they're going to be fantastic I love my Vicar Streets then I'm in Vicar Street, Dublin. Come along to those gigs. They're going to be fantastic. I love my Vicar Streets. Then, I'm over in Oslo on the 5th of February.

Oslo in Norway. That gig is going to be cracking. It's my first gig in Norway. Berlin. Two gigs in Berlin. One sold out. The other one is almost sold out. That's on the 8th of February.

March, I'm in Derry in the Millennium Forum and then just announcing this fucking week and on sale this Friday this podcast is after going massive in England Scotland and Wales the past six months I don't know what did it but it's gone really really big over there people couldn't get tickets for my tour there in November. So I'm announcing a new UK tour for April. And I'm going to go to some new places. I'm going to go to Newcastle, Glasgow, Nottingham, Cardiff, Brighton, Cambridge, Bristol. And then on the 1st of May London, my biggest London show yet

in the Hammersmith Apollo so I don't know what the fuck's going on but the Kraken Tens are really enjoying this podcast and are crying out for gigs so there's a new UK tour in April there and the tickets are going to be on sale this Friday

I'll probably announce it on Instagram. I'd imagine Blind Boy Boat Club on Instagram. So I'm going to read you now. A short story. A short story called I'll Give You Barcelona. From my collection Topografia Hibernica. This is from the audio book. So also there's a custom kind of. Soundscape that I composed as well.

And on the topic of art. You know the first half of this podcast. I was speaking about how. Art is a flower. The fruiting body is like a flower. That grows up from the earth. But then you have the root network. Which is intertextual.

And it relates to all other pieces of art. That influence that flower. And that nourish it's growth. This short story is about masculinity in 2023. It's about two lads in a gym in Limerick. It's a comedy. There were parts I definitely recorded this episode because I kept laughing over some of the lines. But when I was writing this, I wasn't consciously aware of the Cú Chulainn connection. I only realised that after I'd written it.

In fact, if I'd have gone at this story and said, alright, I'm going to write a short story about a gym in Limerick, but there's going to be elements of the mythology of Cú Chulainn involved. If I'd have done that, it probably would have come out quite contrived and forced, and it might not have worked but it's about what are you fertilising the earth with what are you feeding your unconscious mind with and when you create any piece of art

painting, music, writing, whatever the fuck you're doing if you're genuinely engaging with other art with other people's art or ideas whatever it is you're so passionate about that makes you feel really relaxed, that will feed your unconscious mind. And then when you sit down and enter flow state, those ideas will bubble up without you even knowing. It's like if you watch a fucking a film and then you go to bed and you have a dream and elements of that film pop up in your own dream, creativity is like that too.

Whatever you feed your unconscious mind with, whatever you relax with and you get passionate about, it will find its way up in your art if it genuinely connects with you. You don't even have to worry about it. It'll just happen. And then afterwards you go, oh, fuck. Oh, okay, that's what that is and then once you have that awareness you can go back to the edit and you can edit it with that new awareness in mind so this short story is called i'll give you barcelona

and i hope you enjoy it i'll give you barcelona i do this thing in the gym, in the gym locker room, not just me, men do this thing in the gym locker room. We try to be as naked as possible at all times. To show other men how much of a confident alpha male you are, you'll see the opposite with the younger men, less sure of themselves trainee men. order themselves training men. Lads of about 18 or 19. They always have their towels around their tackle. Swimming shorts in the shower too, which is a real taboo. I don't take too much

heed of it. They're allowed to be like that. They're not silverbacks yet. In fact, it's a show of respect to us. But a grown man in swimming shorts? Like me? Well into my forties. You'd better be heading to the pool immediately after your shower.

Because swimming shorts make the other men think. Are you saying I want to be looking at your dick? Why are you hiding it from me like I want to see it? Show it to me so I can ignore it. So we get violently naked. It's a staring contest with no staring. And if my deodorant falls on the tiles, I'm bending over, I'm parching down and picking it up and you might have to deal with my asshole. And that's just how it is. Because I'm not about to be alpha male by these other cunts. So there's my fucking langer too while we're here dangling

from behind live with it. And the more alpha male a man is the more likely he is to draw his leg up on a bench and towel his bars in front of the other men. He slide the towel through his crack and make a banister out of himself and he might shout and scream about a holiday or a dead relative while he's doing it so you have to pay attention to him and you counter this by mastering the art of looking through his nudity you never look away fuck me you'll never ever turn away you would have to kill yourself and you can hear the wet smacks of his parted arse if he's near you.

Double pints to him if you taste the spice of his taint in the humid air. Silent Notre-Dame is almost as bad as swimming shorts in the shower. Your body must be made the centre of attention while other men force themselves to watch everything around you. Draw them into your equipment until their bodies are orbiting you. Be the sunshine made of beige flesh. That's real leadership. And did you know that Bruce Lee was so healthy his heart burst? When I've had a good day of fairs in the taxi, when the arse would feel like someone else is from sitting down, I'll

hit the gym to get the blood pumping around my veins again. I get stuck into the lifting I does. I take it seriously and I take my health seriously because I'm not hitting 50 and turning into one of these cunts who looks like a continental quilt. Nothing distracts me from lifting. Recently, I started getting into them podcasts while I'm lifting. I heard the younger lads talking about them and I said I'd give them a go. I was listening to a podcast about cheetahs last week while I was tearing through the last reps of the fourth set on the bench. They'd been doing progressive overload. It's where you stack the weights on the bar, do a few sets, then add more weight.

You keep adding to it until you can't lift anymore. It fatigues the muscles and triggers your glycogen stores. Takes a long time before you see the results. But Rome was a building a day. And I was flat on my back. More than 120 kgs above my eyes, when the fella in my ears says, men come from the plains of Africa, that's where our brains still think we are. It kicked me into the mind. I held the bar above my face for too long, I felt the triceps on my right arm lock and the bar came down on my

Adam's apple. Trapped under it I was. I didn't even try to push it off as I was too focused on the podcast. The iron of the barbell was so close to my nose that it smelt like the blood of an enemy. If I was on my own I'd be dead, chalked out. But Kazzy and Pavel came over and lifted the bear off my neck. And they had big pink faces and a pair of them veiny heads like burners screaming at me. With spit coming out and all. They looked frightened. That meant that they could smell my testosterone. Jackie, Jackie, are you alright?

I think they said. Because I couldn't hear them through the big noise cancelling headphones and I didn't want to hear them either. Shut up, I'm listening to cheetahs, I said, even though I wasn't. I was only listening to a fella talking about cheetahs, but that doesn't matter. I came up off the bench, leaving a sweat stain in the shape of myself that some other prick could wipe off. Because Jackie Kinsley never had to wipe down no benches in here. Cozzy and Pavel had the look of lads who expected a thank you.

I alpha mailed them both by turning my back and walking over to the quieter area near the women's fitness bikes. But I swear though, this podcast, lads, this podcast had my undivided attention. I was staring myself out of it in the gym mirror. But I wasn't looking at me. I was looking through me. I was looking at my thoughts. And my right tricep was spasming like a droning rat.

It was an interview with an ex-navy seal called Corey Shunt who lived with cheetahs in Africa. Every day he'd go down to the tree where the cheetah pack were and every day they'd growl at him and show their teeth until one day he drugged a mere cat bit into its neck in front of him. Freaked them all out. The cheetah pack accepted him as one of their own. They respected him and they feared him. He hacked their minds. He hacked their minds. He stayed with the lanky fuckers for a full year and all. And then he flew home to Miami and wrote a book about how we should all be living like cheetahs.

And that's why he was being interviewed on this podcast. Humans have it wrong, he said. and wrote a book about how we should all be living like cheetahs. And that's why he was being interviewed on this podcast. Humans have it wrong, he said, with our office jobs and our pearler necks and our hot dinners. Instead, we should eat one giant raw meal a week, offal, cartilage, bone marrow, and spend the rest of the week running and lifting like we hunted it ourselves. This hacks our minds into thinking that we are cheetahs,

and that we live in the wild outside of society. He said it can get rid of stress, obliterate worries, make you afraid of nothing, and most importantly, you'll gain the respect of other men. Back to our wild state, before all of this shit that we have now, a big empty cheetah's head on you, living in the moment and nowhere else

like a fucking Buddhist monk on spade. This was powerful information. The women's area smelled like a leaky attic, and there were no women. I grabbed a pair of 40kg dumbbells in each fist and burst into 5 sets of Bulgarian split squats with my left foot up on a yoga ball. It works the hamstrings and feels like 20 bouncers headbutting you into the ass and it'll burn the palms of your hands too even with weightlifting gloves on. But you won't see results if you don't feel the pain. As the man says, a burden of hands is worth chewing a bush. And Corey Shunt had my mind scooting off in all sorts of directions. Imagining how I was going to eat my way through an entire butchered calf in

one week. Where would I get one? Does raw meat not have you shitting through the eye of a needle? Where would I get one? Does raw meat not have you shitting through the eye of a needle? I checked my form in the mirror. It was perfect. My knee bent at a 90 degree angle to my chest and my glute was poked out to maximise the contraction. I was doing diaphragmatic breathing with each rep to oxygenate my blood too. I read about it off the back of a creatine tub.

to oxygenate my blood too. I read about it off the back of a creatine tub. Pure loud breathing with sucky lips and bits of spit coming out on the exhale. This and the podcast had me thinking very deep thoughts. Like, my spit spat on my reflection in the mirror and in each bit of spit there was another reflection of me.

Loads of different types of me in the spit mirrors, tiny little round globs, up and down, up and down. I watched myself squatting in the mirror spit, moving all wanky, like I was a long streak of bubblegum being stretched out of a child's teeth. I was all, what do they call it, dis-tortured. My body was all dis-tortured and elastic in the bits of spit and it reminded me of the dream about the dog. Sometimes I have a dream about peeling all the skin off my body and wrapping it around the dog and then the dog attacks a lot of strangers in a supermarket but it's a dog wrapped in my skin so it looks like a wonky version of me. And I see all the people in the supermarket panicking in different directions. And they're

down below because I'm watching from the roof of a multi-storey car park with no skin on, all red like a fella in a medical book. and the dog, the dog who's wearing my skin looks up at me, with my face over the dog's face, and he wants to eat the meat version of me, but I'm not afraid, I want to fuck the dog's mouth, and I wake up in an awful state. On the last set of the Bulgarian squats I didn't give myself any rep limit. I kept going until failure. When you do that it trains the highest possible number of your muscle fibres. It felt like the passion of Christ all the way up the back of my knee as far as my hole. But I tolerated the agony of it when Corey Shunt started calling bullshit on the idea of the alpha male,

a social construct he said it was. I felt like this podcast was made for me and me alone. I was Moses talking to the mad bush, listening to Corey Shunt tell me that the alpha male was based on faulty evidence about packs of wolves in zoos. Society is our zoo. We trap ourselves with poorer necks and office jobs. This notion of a supreme pack leader who fights his way to dominance to lead all the other wolves, it's lies. That only happens in captivity with mentally ill wolves. There's no such thing as an alpha wolf in the wild, he said.

And then he went on, flooring me with his knowledge. We should forget about wolves altogether. Stop talking about wolves. Shut up about them. They're all dead for a reason, and the smart ones have turned into dogs. Forget about being an alpha male too. Be like a cheetah. Cheetahs don't have a pack leader. There's not alpha in a cheetah pack because all the males are sigmas. They're out running around

in the wild. They come and go as they please. Be a sigma male. A sigma male can have it all. Have your power, your freedom, your pick of the gant. But do it independently. Don't be concerning yourself with dominating other men. Strike on your own terms and avoid open conflict or posturing. Transcend status and occupy a higher spectrum of dominance, he said. That's the cheetah mindset. This fella was smart and I was agreeing with him. My head nearly fell off. I was nodding so much. Sure, how could we all be the alpha male?

Wouldn't it end in bloodshed? We'd all be dead by now. Where the fuck was Corey Shunt when I was in my twenties? I needed to hear this back then. Sigma cheater mindset all the way. This was gonna be my new thing. I'd gone a bit overboard with the final reps of the Bulgarian squats and I could feel a cramp coming up in my hamstring. You never want a cramp in your hamstring in the gym because then you have to do a stretch that makes you look like a woman getting ridden

on a snooker table at a hen party. To avoid that, you walk away from the squat and imagine that you're a small baby with a dirty nappy instead. Waddle around a bit, make your knees rubbery so the muscle fibres can breathe. Fair enough, it looks a bit silly, but then you take the attention away from your legs by swinging your arms in circles and talking pure loud. Distract anyone who's looking, move their eyes up from your legs towards your torso and head and it doesn't matter what you're talking about either. So I started talking about cheetahs.

I swung my arms like a windmill and looked at a fella doing pull ups, stared right into his eyes and I shouted Big Lang Yellow comes from Africa with sharp teeth. I said it like a question too, I don't know why I did but your man didn't finish his set anyway, he had his mouth open like he wanted to talk but couldn't find the words, he got pure nervous because I had just dominated him. I asked myself was that the smartest move? Would a Sigma cheetah have done that? Or am I naturally just too much of an alpha wolf? The journey of taming myself had begun. At this point of the podcast I'd left the gym floor and headed for the changing rooms and decided I was going

to have a swim inside the Pyrrol to cool down my muscles after the workout. I have a ritual. The second I crossed the threshold of the changing room I immediately got noed. No exceptions. Corey Shunt was now talking about how to boil an egg by shouting at it and I was giving his words my full undivided attention which was a mistake in hindsight. I should have put the phone in the locker and taken the big headphones off when I stripped because my body was going to the pool but my mind was heading for the shower. I forgot to put on my swimming shorts and I walked cock-first into the swimming pool, which wasn't alpha male or confident or independent or nothing. It's a fucking sex crime.

Luckily, it was quiet at 11am so there was only one other person in the pool. But that person was Purple Brasnan. I hate Purple Brasnan. The bread delivery man in his mid-fifties who only wore shoes from TK Maxx. You'd think he was a millionaire. He was a four-foot-tall, upside-down traffic con with acne scars on his shoulders and swollen toes from years of injecting steroids into them. He smelt like bleach. Cock at a walk in the gym because there was a little trophy.

Beside the vending machines with his name on it. He'd won a few bodybuilding competitions in his time. And you could tell by the way he'd clench his arse cheeks that he thought he was better than you because of it. I hated his arse as well. It looked like a photograph of a roast chicken. And now there he was. Taking off his swimming goggles to witness my naked body. The bottom half of him was under the water so he had wobbly stumps

instead of legs. He squinted and that made his head look like a bag of chips. He wasn't one bit intimidated by my nudity. The shock must have given me a mickey like a belly button because he stared clean at it with disgust in his vinegary eyes. Then up at my nice cancelling headphones, then back down at my cock again. I could see his mouth moving. What the fuck are you doing, Jackie? I'm listening to Cheetahs, I said. Wrong answer again.

I slid the headphones off to try to explain myself but I wasn't thinking straight so I rested them around my neck like a collar bad move any chance of saving myself was gone as soon as I felt my face going red then I did the worst thing imaginable I cupped my two hands over my dinner like it was a penalty showdown.

And Purple Brasnan, the little bastard, gets up out of the pool with his 2007 TK Maxx Armani flip-flops, slapping on the tiles. He walks past me, no eye contact, and he whispers in this managerial tone. He says, put on some shorts, Jackie. They do children's swimming classes in here. no eye contact and he whispers in this managerial tone he says put on some shorts Jackie, they do children's swimming classes in here the bollocks the bollocks thought I'd come into the pool with my float out to alpha male

him and now he just alpha male me, he won purple brazen one I can't have purple brazen thinking he alpha male'd me Even though I'm not doing this alpha male shit no more But still, he doesn't know that As far as he's concerned

He just won Fuck the podcast now I dropped the headphones on the pole side And barreled back into the changing rooms And made myself as nude as possible I'd have got it all I held my breath to inflate my chest I walked with my legs parted like I'd have got it all. I held my breath to inflate my chest. I walked with my legs

parted like I'd shat myself. I had sex with the air in front of me so that my langur slapped against my thigh. I spread out my toes as far as they'd go. I launched my elbows out, pretending I was dragging the corpses of two dead horses behind me, demanding respect through all the skin on me. me, demanding respect through all the skin on me. The room was chubby with undressed men. I imposed myself on him, but it was no use. Something had gone sour. Whatever way Purple Brosnan had cucked me in that swimming pool had changed my status. The weakness rose out of my pores and every man could taste it in the vapour. I'd been too emotional with my body. Kazzy.

Kazzy was over by the hairdryer's palm in Lavender Island to Pavel's Delts. Neither of them even acknowledged how naked I was. I made that noise that you make after coming out of a steam room to let men know that the steam in the steam room was very steamy. Oh! Oh! Nothing. Ignored. All place stinking of lavender and bars. And then Kazi says, Kazi says, where are your big headphones gone, Jackie? Are you not listening to cheaters anymore? And Pavel with his darting eyes did a sharty chuckle, looking for allies, a smirk you wouldn't see on a ferret. He was testing the electricity to see if it was okay to jeer, and there was a coward silence.

And then, Purple Brasnan, the mahogany bollocks, pushes his head out from a locker and pinches this wrinkly prick in his fingernails and says, pinches this wrinkly prick in his fingernails and says, Jackie's off banging cheetahs up the arse and then running around the swimming pool nude with a dirty bellend full of cheetah shit looking for a nine year old to sniff it. And all the men did these hungry laughs that grew louder against the ceramic of the walls. Even the bonnie fella with the cleft padded who has tits from playing golf. No one even knew his name. He wasn't worth the name. And he was howling at me. I felt like the World Trade Centre getting a slap off a plane and crumbling on Sky News. A softer part of me wanted to tell him the truth.

That I'd been so distracted by a life changing podcast about cheetahs that I'd walked into the swimming pool naked by accident but you couldn't open up like that. No more than you could openly acknowledge the nudity hierarchy. Now Corey Shunt spoke about this on the podcast though. This is what happens to the alpha wolf in captivity. They respect you, they fear you, they give you the first dibs and the barbells

the second you show weakness. They all turn on you at once. The alpha wolf is banished from the pack, forced to wander the perimeters alone and die beside the fence or cancel his gym membership. That's the beauty and cruelty of nature. But they were still laughing. Not the big loud laughs but the smaller bent over chuckles that sound like a nose getting blown. My eyesight became wobbly and my forehead hurt with rage. Laughing at Jackie Kinsland and Jim Chandler under there? Laughing at Jackie Kinsland and Jim Chandler under there? Have they gotten me confused with a man who lets other men

laugh at him? I kept my head stuck in the locker so they couldn't see any emotion out of me. To calm myself down, to calm myself down, I stared at the photograph of toes on my athlete's foot powder. They were slender toes and I couldn't tell if it was a woman's toes or a small man's toes that had been shaved and when I thought about shaving the hair off the knuckle of a toe I felt my face getting less red and my jaw unclenching. I could have picked up the bottle held it up for all to see pointed at the toes and said to Purple Brasnan something. Look at these gorgeous toes. They wouldn't put your big Chernobyl toes. On this bottle of athlete's foot powder.

You geriatric club footed cunt. And then he would have been the one. Who was being laughed at. And I would have restored my status. But I didn't. Because I'm not doing this alpha wolf shit no more. I decided that in the mirror earlier. I have the sigma Cheetah mindset now

I think before I act. The laughter ended and the time had come for us to all hit the showers. Conversation turned to Aston Villa and the actor Michael Douglas who got tonsil cancer from licking a fanny. No one asked for my input

because there was too much tension. They were all waiting for my response to Purple Brosnan. They were thinking, was Jackie just going to let him castrate him like that? Jackie Kinsler? Jackie who had trials for Everton, Jackie? Jackie Kinsler who has his own gym locker that wasn't really mine but everyone

knew it was mine? Was he really going to bow down to Purple Brasnan? I took out my big red Bermuda swimming shorts from my locker and slid them on over my nudity. Pavel suckled at his post-workout protein shake like it was a tit. Cozzy threw a glance at me, the way you'd watch a car crash, his voice gone up into his throat like a tit. Cozzy threw a glance at me, the way you'd watch a car crash. His voice gone up into his throat like a child. Are you not coming into the showers, Jackie? We're all showered and now... I am, I said. Did you not see me benching a hundred and twenty kg? The pair of ye were barely able to lift it off my neck. I'm stinking. Why would you think I'm not coming into the

shower? Every man gawked at the white tropical flowers on my swimming shorts, with terror and pity in their eyes, and I let him have that little moment, like a fucking cheetah in the long grass over a swarm of antelope. Purple Brosnan stood silent with his tanned prick out. They say actions be louder than words. Well I'd have planned to fuck with the rolls a bit. Get inside their heads. You see, you have to be a bit more

protective of your nudity in the shower because showers are sexual. Be nude, but not as nude as the changing room. Let everyone see that you've got nothing to hide. But don't be swinging anything around. Nothing that might risk your wet skin touching another man's wet skin. You play it forward in the changing room. You defend in the showers. Arses to the wall. Feet nailed to the tiles.

Chests out. You can't enjoy it. Washing needs to be functional. Make noises like the shower is attacking you. When the hot water hits the back of your shoulders, pull the wet over your front like a rucksack with your fists. Too much lather is a weakness. Ideally use water only and avoid shower gel. Let your skin resist the droplets and you look impenetrable. skin resist the droplets and you look impenetrable. The no soap in the showers thing is bullshit. Soap is actually better than shower gel because you can hit someone with soap but bare water is best. No turning away, stare through the nudity, don't ever spend any great length of time washing your dick in case you get a spanty. Flaccid is leadership. Talk if you want, but if you do talk, make a solid point with your words. Shout. Don't let any man think you're talking just to distract yourself from looking at his shaft. And of course, the most important rule of all, don't ever wear swimming shorts. The showers smell like the inside of a hotel kettle. A perfectly square room full of tiles. A fucking shower like. Six shower heads and then a drain

in the middle which was no man's land. If there were more men than six men then two men had to share. No touching. Depending on the man. Jackie Kinsley never had to share a shower head with any man. You get the point. There were six of us in the shower. Cozzy, Pavel,

Golf Tits, some other fella with freckles who thought he was above it all. He wasn't. And me in my swimming shorts. A purple brazen was fashionably laid cos all of us knew that this shower would be his coronation. He was gonna pull some shit.

Some big alpha move. Those were the rules. After dressing me down in the pool, and in that joke in the locker room, and now me wearing swimming shorts, he had to take his crown. Under those shower heads was where he'd decapitate me,

in front of witnesses to legitimise it. The warm water was teeming from the walls. Sounded like a leaky garage in a storm pavel was forced to try and burst the tension rubbing soap into his neck and choking himself he yelped my legs are fucked from them no deadlifts eat a banana after to replenish your glycogen stores says cozy and then a thundery roar came in we all know her Pavel wants to stick that banana he wants to ram it up his Latvian Jack see no one laughed it was purple brazen and gliding into the shower barefoot two inches shorter

with the chest out in the chin up I watched him on the sleigh. With all due respect, he'd a body like stone. A little ball-peen hammer of a man. He was streaky with that dark fake tan that bodybuilders wear, and the brown dripped off his swollen toes and dissolved into the water and made it rusty. I hated the bones of him. He made eye contact with no one and pulled out a small blue plastic disposable razor, held it up with the gristly elbows above his forehead and every cunt glanced at me for the split of a second and that was a solid move in fairness. Even I got a bit of a fright when I saw the razor.

I've a competition in a month. You don't mind if I shave in here he says we're not allowed to shave in the shower for hygiene reasons says golf tits be quiet golf tits stay out of it now purple asked again a bit quieter and directed at the real men

you don't mind if I shave lads I'm putting on a second coat at the town after the shower and I need to clear away some hair go ahead purple says Kazi where are you competing and purple goes I'm putting on a second coat at the town after the show and I need to clear away some hair. Go ahead, Purple, says Kazzy. Where are you competing? And Purple goes, Over in Barcelona. No, we'd all assumed that Purple wanted to shave his chest or legs.

But before anyone could even take in his words, he faced the wall and very rapidly bent over. With one set of fingers he tore apart his arse cheeks and with the other he used the razor to shave the curly auburn hairs that circled his hope. He dug into it and one lad actually gasped. Golf tits, flat out left. Purple Brosnan pointed his arsehole at every single man in the shower, holding the own hostage. They immediately turned their backs and washed themselves pure quickly,

with anxious, uncomfortable fidgets. They hadn't the status to witness what he was doing to his anus. These were the advanced tactics of a veteran. He was in full control. Big alpha move. Oh, Barcelona, I'd say that's lovely this time of year, squealed Kazi into the wall like an excited woman. Purple Brosnan started screaming while he was shaving.

Yeah, it's an over-fifties bodybuilding competition. I've a fair shot at gold or silver. Dorian Yates is on the adjudicating panel. I'll be cutting out carbs completely next week. Three chickens a day and a yard of broccoli. And then he pivoted his little half-shorn hope at me. I stared at his arse like it was a high court judge. I despised his undercarriage.

A crinkly cyclops balloon not wrecked him. Tanned gloats divided by a big stupid long magnolia burst, ending in a pair of continental quilt balls and about nine grey pubes. What do you think, Jackie? His ring winked at me when he talked. Do you reckon I win a trophy in Barcelona? This was the barrel of the gun pointed at my temple. I'll give you Barcelona, I said, which didn't make any sense at all, but before I could even feel embarrassed about it,

I was biting down on his left arse cheek. I was giving him Barcelona with my mouth, and then it made sense. I hadn't planned it. Nature did it. I latched onto his hole, my nostril in his ring and all. It smelled like a line of coke. I kept my swimming shorts on.

I transcended status and floated to a higher spectrum of dominance. Jackie, Jackie, stop! They all started screaming. Because they could hear my testosterone. I thought about starting a war. I thought about starting a war I thought about starting a podcast I hung from the back of purple I didn't draw blood but I left a mark He shouted

In that moment I realised I wasn't the alpha wolf And I wasn't the sigma cheetah either I was that skin coveredcovered dog from my dream whose mouth I want to fuck. A new tune there guys from Blind Boy Boat Club from his album Topografia Hibernica. A bit of an experimental song for RTE 2FM that was 40 minutes long, but I'm ready for it, guys. 576312 if you're ringing in, the traffic on the M50 is absolutely crazy.

No, that was, uh, that was I'll Give You Barcelona, a short story from my book, right? If you like that, go and get the audiobook. I just, I'm going to do the outro and the bed of music from that story because it's quite nice. I didn't want to go back into the piano. And on the topic of art and this podcast, the theme of the podcast, you can engage with that story intertextually with the deeper themes. You can, you know, you can dig up the art if you like

or you can just smell the flower you can just go that was a funny story about one man biting another man's arse both approaches are valid it's up to you I'll catch you next week with a short I naturally now sound like a radio DJ

because of how that the music is I'll catch you next week with a hot take in the meantime rub a dog kiss a swan tickle the ears of a kitten

alright dog bless rock city you're the best fans in the league, bar none. Tickets are on sale now for Fan Appreciation Night on Saturday, April 13th when the Toronto Rock hosts the Rochester Nighthawks at First Ontario Centre in Hamilton at 7.30pm. You can also lock in your playoff pack right now to guarantee the same seats for every postseason game and you'll only pay as we play. Come along for the ride and punch your ticket to Rock City at torontorock.com.